276 NA TURAL I1ISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches 

 seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A neighbour's 

 laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was 

 perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained 

 unhurt. 



As to .the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly de- 

 stroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, were so 

 thinned that few remained to breed the following year. 



LETTER LXIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I 

 trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and especially 

 when I promise to say no more about the severities of winter after 

 I have finished this letter. 



The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer 

 very low. On the yth,with the barometer at 28*5 came on a vast 

 snow, which continued all that day and the next, and most part 

 of the following night ; so that by the morning of the 9th the works 

 of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be im- 

 passable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches without 

 any drifting. In the evening of the 9th the air began to be so very 

 sharp that we thought it would be curious to attend to the motions 

 of a thermometer ; we therefore hung out two, one made by Martin 

 and one by Dollond, which soon began to show us what we were to 

 expect ; for by ten o'clock they fell to 21, and at eleven to 4, when 

 we went to bed. On the loth, in the morning, the quicksilver of 

 Dollond's glass was down to half a degree below zero ; and that of 

 Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above 

 zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that when the 

 weather became most interesting this was useless. On the loth, at 

 eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's glass 

 went down to one degree below zero ! This strange severity of the 

 weather made me very desirous to know what degree of cold there 

 might be in such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We 

 had therefore, on the morning of the loth, written to Mr. , 



